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Comment by geocrasher | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure what surprised me more: Seeing a guy installing free payphones (a great idea!) or seeing the term "Phreaker" on HN :D

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The article linked does not mention it, but these phones are connected to PhreakNet also: https://portal.phreaknet.org/

Wow! I... do not understand what this is. Can phreaknet make and receive calls from the general public phone network?

Nope, as I understand is a parallel network.

https://portal.phreaknet.org/faq

> seeing the term "Phreaker" on HN

its not _that_ uncommon is it? Given that phreakers are like the genesis of hackers.

Phreakers were the second generation of hackers. The original hackers were a collective of students in MIT

No, phreakers have been around since the Bell system. That's Capt. Crunch etc.

Parent is probably referring to the Tech Model Railroad Club at MIT, which is considered the first recognized group of hackers and predates Capt. Crunch by at least a decade.

Yeah I was referring to the Tech Model Railroad Club.

I met Capt. Crunch at DEF CON 5-6 years ago.

I was so excited and even got a picture with him. Then I found out about his dark and sketchy past from others when I told people about it.

tl;dr = hes basically a sexual predator/creeper w young boys.

I will defend Capt. Crunch a bit.. no, not 'predator' thats a legal accusation. AutoDesk brought a fully configured Sun to his messy desk in the 1980s, and "the workout" was sort of repressed sexual behavior yes, but not 'predator' .. no way.. How many people here are active kinky ? loud about it too.. Its a complicated story.. no CANCEL on Capt Crunch, please

If you want to hate on someone in a cowardly anonymous way, I would go for that ReiserFS guy, who lived in the same area at the same time

Phreaking is phone comms, which is a subset of hacking/cracking imho

This is how I've always heard it categorized, since at least the early 90's.

Not really, I recall this being posted when it came out which has a good phreaking lineage :) http://www.phrack.org/issues/70/1.html

we still phreaking.

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